Subculture, or the Sickness unto Death

31 Pages·2003·0.08 MB·English

by  Per Otnes

Sosiologisk årbok 1999.2
Subculture, or
the Sickness unto Death
1
Per Otnes
Summary:
Kierkegaard's Sickness unto death deals with despair of various
types, basically that of wanting or not wanting to be oneself. This
paper suggests that subcultures (hereafter SC), and subcultural
studies, may be seen as cases in point, i.e. definitely marked by traces
of similar despairs.
Changing concepts of culture generally are reviewed, from Tylor
to 'culture has to go' Ingold, the conclusions being that culture
spells conflict and that a metonymic turn is in order. As for SCs, a
major change in usage is dated to c. 1970. Earlier, SCs were
conceived as local, not age-specific and relatively closed groups.
After, they're dispersed, highly age-specific, i.e. juvenile, and wide
open, notably for media attention. Simultaneously, a change of
method took place, from functionalism to the 'interpretation of
meaning'.

1
Thanks to Susanna M. Solli for her thorough comments on an earlier version.
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Subculture, or the Sickness unto Death
Based mainly on Hebdige's and Gottdiener's analysis of the punk
SC we endeavour to demonstrate that today, a 'real' SC is
indistinguishable from the media image thereof (and vice versa),
hence contingent rather than creative, acted on rather than acting,
or 'done not doing'. Or in the terms of Willis/Hurd, 'all style and
taste cultures express something of a general trend to find and
make identity outside of work'.
So less variant, less distinct or deviant movements are suggested
for future studies, tentatively called juxta- or intra-cultures,
applying interpretative or dialectic approaches. The symbolic
creativity, 'latent resistance' or subdued grievance in such circles
cannot be taken a priori to be less vital, less factual, than the
hypervisible juvenile effervescent SCs which have dominated
public and professional attention during two decades.
Introduction
What follows will examine subculture as a concept, if it is indeed a
concept, its origins, growth, and possible decline; and to what extent it
may be related to Kierkegaard's (1849/1929) concept of despair, 'a
disease of the self'.
Why Kierkegaard? His The sickness unto death is a fascinating theory;
even if not, perhaps, entirely tenable it is exceptionally perceptive on
self-deception. In brief outline:
The self is a relationship which relates to itself, or the
relationship in so far as the relationship relates to itself... In
the relationship between two the relationship is the third,
as a negative unit ... If conversely the relationship relates
to itself, then that latter relationship is the positive third,
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Sosiologisk årbok 1999.2
that is to say, the self... Despair is a sickness of the spirit, in
the self, by implication a triple: desperately not being
aware of having a self (inessential despair); (a self)
desperately not willing to be itself; (a self) desperately
willing to be itself. (1849/1929:143)
Quite a mouthful. A more palatable version: An I, a Self relates to lots
of different things — relations of use, talk, reflection, etc., gathering
experience, forming opinions of the world, its things and tools, of other
selves etc. Among these different entities the I itself also figures more
or less prominently; laying plans for itself, praising or criticising itself,
forming more or less stable ideas of what it can or cannot manage etc.
The I, in many brief and passing ways, relates to its own activities or
passivities, which tend over time to approach settled forms — thus
becoming 'the positive third' of the quote, a relationship of its own,
more or less fixed, by and through innumerable single instances of
relating2.
So far for the self. Despair3 may arise in it as forever new instances of
relating occur, in accord or not with its fixed form up to now.
Kierkegaard speaks first of not being willing to be one's self, as 'the
despair of weakness'. Take for example Hjalmar Ekdal of Ibsen's The
wild duck, a photographer and a father who is not really trying very
hard to be either, and further, not relating to that fact, except
theatrically and ephemerally when disaster strikes4. Next, the 'despair
of defiance' (or baulkiness, Da. Trods is not easily translated), or
desperately willing to be one's self, that is fashioning a self for oneself -

2 As an analogy, think of semiology's concepts signifier and signified, with
signification emerging as a third, a more durable relation between the two.
3 From Lat. de-spero, lose (all) hope, inexact as a translation of Da. fortvivle, Germ.
verzweifeln, literally 'exess of doubt or division' (tvivl is related to Gk. diplos, divided,
twofold), in present use approx. 'being beside oneself with distress, not knowing what
to do', so somewhere between despair and resignation, indecision. Depression is a later
psychological euphemism, narrower and more passive than the active despair,
fortvivle.
4 Hence approaching a case of despair bordering on the 'inessential' - not being aware
of having a self, with real despair surfacing only rarely. - The choice of instances here
and below is not random; it is well known that Ibsen was inspired by Kierkegaard .
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fitting, attainable or not. Sticking with Ibsen, perhaps Eilert Løvborg of
Hedda Gabler, he who writes on 'the course of future's culture'. Or
Solness of The Master Builder, who dares at last to mount the apex of
his structure. And of course, Brand. All fail to be sure, but only after
having made great efforts, their despair plainly visible.
For a lesser, or a different literary example, take Presley's Hound dog,
who's 'never gonna rebel and ain't no friend of mine', for the first type.
For the second, those 'rebels' or 'rockers' themselves who desperately
want to succeed for themselves against the current, both before and
after their movement's surge.
The hypotheses: Subculture5 as despair
Which anticipates the link to present-day SCs: we hypothesise that two
types of SC adherents can be distinguished, corresponding roughly to
Kierkegaard's latter two types: (1) weakness, or those who don't really
want to ever go entirely SCal but are content by toying or playing with
it, keeping an amount of 'role distance'; and (2) defiance, or those who
want to go all the way but remain dimly aware that their aim isn't
really well attainable, except perhaps for the rare few who consequently
live the life of 'endangered species', such as the Jimi Hendrixes, Janice
Joplins, Jim Morrisons, Kurt Cobains etc. - or the Baudelaires,
Mozarts, van Goghs, Charlie Parkers, Jack Kerouacs, certainly not
forgetting Søren Kierkegaard himself, this text being his last extensive
work six years before his premature death at 43.
The first type - weakness - would seem to harbour a double, if less
acute, despair: That of not wanting to remain an ordinary lower-class
youth, and simultaneously wanting to approach but not to be totally
engulfed by, a set of SCal ways or symbols, well expressed by Phil
Cohen (1972, here quoted from Hebdige 1979:77)

5 Review of definitions below.
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... a compromise solution between two contradictory
needs: the need to create and express autonomy and
difference from parents ... and the need to maintain their
parental identifications ... (to) express and resolve, albeit
magically, the contradictions which remain hidden or
unresolved in the parent culture.
The second or defiant type is more clear-cut. The all-out SC member is
also desperately wanting to be what s/he is (yet) not, not to be what
s/he is (now). But at the outset or apex of the movement it is more
likely to be all defiant, a ostentative contrast, going for a maximum or
to the brink. Come time, this may change into weariness, despondency
or resignation; or into nostalgia, 'those were the days', 'Frankie's wild
years', auch ich in Arkadien etc. – cf. Baudrillard 1997 on the role of
pastiche in art.
Suggesting that SC may involve this 'sickness' — or despair, duplicity,
self-deception, as a lasting or passing phase — does not at all imply its
being 'less real' or less worthy of attention. It is, not unlike infatuation,
probably more intense than 'ordinary life', especially the second or
defiant type; a high-strung phase - perhaps enviable - of hyper-life,
more real than the commonplace real, some would hold. More about
the role of enthusiasm or fascination inside and out of SCs later.
'Social despair' - and its limits
Now for Kierkegaard's less tenable views: The implication, not explicit
but also not explicitly ruled out, that any self is despair and nothing but
despair in one of the three forms mentioned, should be avoided. The
idea, if that was Kierkegaard's or is anybody else's, that 'the sickness
unto death' is a dominant state, is not tenable. Life is not all weakness
or defiance, it is resolution and perseverance as well. Cf. the 'Parson's
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sermon' of Ibsen's Peer Gynt - the farmer who did his job, all of it,
dodging enlistment and other sidetracking efforts6. That is, a self, or a
self-other-relation, at ease with itself – a case of routinely won
objectivation (eu-pragia7), as it was. However, selves such as that are
no problem – and admittedly perhaps not very frequently found. Who
doesn't ask oneself 'Is this really me?', 'Can't win’em all, can you?', or
'Am I not overdoing it?' every so often? So the focus remains on selves
in despair – in, dare we say, sub-pathologic states or aspects, prominent
if not dominant; more come-and-go than either-or, perhaps.
Further, Kierkegaard of course knew nothing about a social
psychology such as George Herbert Mead's (1934), the much later
idea8 of a self being formed, not through self-reflection but through
'the play, the game and the generalised other'. Today's self is not by far
a 'self-made self', it's more of a latecomer, confined to doing the best of
the remnants left by a number of 'significant (and less significant)
others'. We, our Selves, however cherished or rejected, are not alone in
the world; we are made and shaped by others, whom we continue to rub
against, pat affectionately, pay limited attention etc. The influence of
others may work both as an excuse for not trying to change ourselves
even when we can, but it may certainly form real opposition, obstacles,
enemy forces as well. So the despair of SCs may be less a 'disease of the
self' and more a 'disease of the self-other relation', more about which later
when we discuss the non-autonomy of SCs.
Elsewhere (Otnes 1997a: 7,11), I have outlined, 'the converse
Kierkegaard', a worse and more basic form of despair, 'a disease of
your Other': (a) not believing that you have an Other, or (b) believing
that you have one but suspecting that your self has been entirely
engulfed by him/her, or (c) suspecting that you have engulfed him/her,

6 From Kierkegaard's Either-Or certainly the character B, the devoted husband, and
perhaps even A, the seducer, are integral, balanced, reflective characters, not (often)
desperate.
7 Greek for good, successful work or practice.
8 Not necessarily later; this may relate to K.'s wholesale rejection of Hegelianism,
including the 'master vs. slave dialectics', certainly among Mead's inspirations.
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i.e. taken over all control of that other. Simplified, (a) 'nothing new
under the sun'; (b) the unease of the total follower, or 'Am I not being
lived, not living?'; and (c) 'do I have to take all the decisions here?'
respectively. In their inessential forms, traditional, existential despair
implies ‘being nobody in a world of bodies’, while social despair implies
being somebody without anybody else, as if alone in an empty world.
‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity’ (Eccl. 1:2). The essential versions
involve acknowledging your Other/your Self, but then, overstating or
shying away from your insight.
All of which are traceable, in more or less direct forms, within or
around SCs, as we shall see.
A complicating factor of recent origins is 'the Generalised Observer' -
the Media: Today we don't know who we are until we see it on
TV/other media. Videor ergo sum9 - in the Warhol age of '15 min.'s
world fame for all' who or what is not being seen does not exist.
So far for our hypotheses; now for their substantiation, working
through the words, the concepts and their histories.
Culture, the general concept
As is well known, definitions of culture generally abound (cf. Kuper
1997). A recent local definition by anthropologist Unni Vikan (1995:17)
may do as well as any:
Today we can agree that culture refers to the sum of
learned (as opposed to biological) knowledge and
experience in a group10. Earlier, we held that these values

9 'I'm being seen therefore I am'.
10 This innocent-looking addition, "in a group", is in fact essential. Culture is a
relational concept, meaningless if the specification in which group? is lacking.
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had to be unanimous and that they were transmitted from
one generation to the next, which has proved to be
untenable.
Schütz (1937/1964:93) is worth quoting on the failing coherence of a
dominant culture, from the point of view of a sociologist 'stranger' or
immigrant/refugee:
...the knowledge of the man who acts and thinks within
the world of his daily life is not homogeneous; it is (1)
incoherent, (2) only partially clear and (3) not at all free
from contradictions.
So, adhering to a dominant culture does not, perhaps, involve so much
being in total conformity as being in a tacit, as if automatic, agreement
to avoid situations and questions which would expose the muddles or
contradictions of dominance – the doxa, or discourse taken as if self-
evident (Bourdieu 1977:164ff).
Østerberg’s (1997:11) definition is particularly elegant. After defining
sociology as 'the science of social conflict and integration', and cultural
sociology as the branch which '... deals with culture in the wide and
narrower sense, in the light of social conflict and integration', he goes
on:
The concept of culture in the wide sense comprises all
giving form to our existence; custom and etiquette, rituals
and institutions of all types... Culture in the narrower sense
comprises activities and arrangements which mirror,
express and appraise culture in the wide sense.
The unease of innumerable writers trying to conceptually unite 'high'
and 'low', elite or mass culture, resolved in three simple words - mirror,
express, appraise!
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Some pages later Østerberg introduces hegemony11:
The modern culture is a hegemonic world culture, admitting
non-modern traits from early on - Chinese interiors, Persian
carpets, Turkish janissary music... All of this does not
threaten modernity's hegemony; it is rather an aspect of
modernity as a dialectical concept: modern culture will
acquaint itself with everything (1997:32–3).
So, no more than 'old' foreign interior items do 'recent' salsa, neo-punk,
'camp' interiors, or Mongolian overtone chant in themselves threaten the
general, hegemonic culture of modernity, nor do they of necessity
constitute SCs; they testify rather to the great resilience of modernity.
The present author's preference, however, is for a less elegant formula,
culture as
a set of artefacts typically used and customs typically
observed among a set of persons.
Most standard general definitions, remember, were formed in opposition
to the materialism of the preceding researcher generation; not so much
that of the Marxian type - in existence but rare - but of the ethnographic
type, Musée de l'Homme-type artefact collections, the 'museum science'.
Present anthropologists, re-assuming on occasion the ethnographer label,
are starting to transcend that, a typical title being Daniel Miller's 'Things
ain't what they used to be' (1983). Pure, as if immaterial, knowledge
simply cannot be formed without material artefacts being used on raw or
semi-processed materials.
Recently serious and vociferous doubts are being raised on the
applicability of the general concept of culture in anthropology, cf.

11 Hegemony: an amalgam of numerically small, usually elite parties, who by uniting
on crucial issues manage to dominate other, as or more numerous parties, the point
being that each party to the hegemonic coalition would be too weak to effect
domination alone.
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Longva (1997). Phrases such as 'culture has to go' (Ingold 1993) or
'scrap culture' (Kuper 1997) has occurred in earnest. We cannot go
into that debate here; suffice to say that the concept is, by some,
beginning to be seen as too general or embracing, too static ('reifying
exotism'), too loaded, carrying unhappy connotations etc., and so
perhaps better replaced by less general yet not very specific successors
— a whole family of terms such as custom, fad, field, habit, identity,
lifestyle, movement, mentality, network, tradition, even lifeworld or
value system – a whole family of petits récits, in 'post-modern' terms.
In sum so far, culture generally is a concept and an entity in flux, not fully
stable; it is disputed, not altogether consensual, i.e. following Schütz, not
coherent, only partially clear, and containing contradictions. Or following
Østerberg, it is part of the general study of social conflict and integration.
This is what I call 'the metonymic turn' in cultural studies, the problem
of which consists much less in finding a general, unanimous definition,
and much more in selecting crucial, revealing, informative single sets of
traits for closer study. 'Random sampling' of cultural items would be
senseless – and continued discussion of the general concept not much
less so.
We've touched on the 'culture of whom?' problem12: Whose custom,
knowledge etc. is this? No less a problem is the 'culture for whom?', or
discourse problem: Who are speaking, studying, appraising etc. whose
– who else’s ? - culture? This may be related to Pike's (1967) emic-etic
distinction, the idea that anthropological fieldwork can be subdivided in
emic or actors’ point of view studies, and studies from the etic or
external, expert, comparative point of view, the linguistic distinction of
phonemics and phonetics being the model. This is, however,
problematic in terms of epistemology, notably Skjervheim’s 1957/1976
discussion of the participant and observer positions, his point being that
a pure, good-faith neutral observer is on reflection not really possible

12 Note 10 above.
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